


Rules, Regs, and Responsibilities

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Female Character In Command, Gen, Humor, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-30
Updated: 2011-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never expected the command of Atlantis would be easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules, Regs, and Responsibilities

**Author's Note:**

> Written to a prompt left by Sue at LJ: _Sam. "Please tell me you didn't just do that."_

There are four basic rules to being a gate team.

One. Never leave your team-mates behind. Face it as a team, or not at all.

Two. A lower technology level doesn't mean the locals are stupid. Don't be a dick when trading.

Three. Make nice. Smile at the locals, chit-chat politely, keep your eyes and your ears open and don't draw your weapon unless you're pretty sure there's a solid threat.

Four. Keep it in your pants. Or, if you're a female member of a gate team, keep the locals out of your pants.

To give Captain Soma's team their due, they're ranged around the errant Lieutenant at the heart of the crisis Sam is facing today. They got into detailed discussions for grain trading, thanks to Dr. Soh's excellent (if wordy) work. They were polite and more than willing to attend the harvest feast and festivities that are common on many agrarian worlds through Pegasus and the Milky Way.

Unfortunately, Lieutenant Horwood has committed the cardinal sin of drinking too deep of the local hooch and waking up in a bed he'd never seen with a girl he barely remembered from the previous night.

Sam closes her eyes as the young man finishes his stuttering explanation, scarlet stealing a march across his fair skin in a ruddy tide. She wants to ask someone to tell her that Jimmy Horwood, First Class, did not just wed and bed one of the Pegasus natives in the local custom.

Unfortunately, denying the truth is not going to help anyone.

Most certainly, it's not going to help the young woman standing defiantly beside her husband, her arms folded, her jaw set like steel. This isn't some good-natured country girl swept off her feet by exotic foreigners, but a young lady who would appear to know her own mind quite well and isn't about to relinquish one inch of her rights.

"All right," Sam looks at the girl. "Pelani, were you willing to sleep with him?"

"Colonel!" Captain Soma interjects.

"It's part of the protocol, Captain," Sam says without taking her eyes off the young woman. "Don't interrupt. Was sex with your consent?"

Pelani frowns. "Yes."

"Did he hurt you?"

"No."

"Were you coerced, forced, or threatened by your family to do this?"

Her expression is outraged. "No!"

"I'm sorry, but these are the questions I have to ask when such a situation like this one occurs. And, you must admit," she says with a touch of dryness, "we weren't prepared for your arrival."

"Clearly." Pelani's shrug only adds to the dryness of her response. "He was adequate."

The sergeant muffles what sounds like a laugh at such faint praise; the private is less capable and audibly chokes. Horwood goes bright scarlet. Even the sober and stentorian Captain Soma bites his lip.

Sam doesn't allow her mouth to twitch even a fraction. "I see. And it is a requirement that you live with your husband's people?"

"Not really."

Horwood gapes at his new bride. "What? You mean, you didn't have to come back here with us?"

"As though I'd be so stupid to say that in front of my father," Pelani snaps back. "And dare him to suppose he could continue to claim my herds as his own? Not so long as I have breath!"

"So, wait a minute," Captain Soma says. "This is all a ploy to get off-planet with your dowry?"

"He agreed to it," Pelani looks at Jimmy Horwood. "He said it'd be a lark, and he'd never been married before, but what the hell because his parents thought it was time he settled down."

"Is this true?" Sam looks to Jimmy Horwood, who's got the sudden expression of a man who's just remembered exactly what he said in the haze of alcoholic passion the previous night. Her eyes narrow when he shuffles his feet. "All right, then."

"He's not who I'd have chosen if there was any other option," Pelani says, forthright to the point of bluntness. "He's just not the kind of husband I want."

"Well, you're not exactly the kind of girl my parents had in mind for me!" Jimmy retorts.

"Lieutenant," Sam warns him, and pins the girl with a minatory look when she opens her mouth to get a retort in. The cynic in her notes that they have the fighting down pat for a marriage in any case. The optimist chides her for thinking such a thing.

Oddly, the cynic sounds like Daniel. The optimist sounds like Jack.

There's a Gordian knot at the centre of all this, but it's not Sam's job to untangle it - that work belongs to the newlywed couple. Sam is willing to help, but now that she's been apprised of the situation and gotten through the basics, there are certain things that need to be dealt with.

"Pelani, we don't have the space to keep your dowry, I'm afraid - they're already causing havoc down in the gateroom, so we'll be dialling one of our trading partners and settling them there for a while. In the meantime, while you and Lieutenant Horwood sort things out regarding your marriage," _including whether you wish to remain married at all,_ "you are welcome to stay in Atlantis."

The girl inclines her head, gracious as a princess.

"Lieutenant." Sam lets the command tone take her voice, cool and sharp, and watches the young man snap to attention. "After today, you are off active duty until the circumstances of your marriage are resolved with Pelani. Your team is stood down, and will be assigned duties in-city by Colonel Sheppard until such a time, and I recommend speaking with--" _Oh, hell._ Dr. Heightmeyer was dead. And Dr. Keller was too new in her position - and, quite possibly - not quite the person to deal with this. Sam scrambles for an appropriate substitute for consultation on these matters, hopes she's not about to make an enemy of an ally, and finishes with, "Teyla Emmagan regarding...the ins and outs of your marriage. Are we clear?"

Not her best speech ever, but adequate enough.

"Yes, ma'am."

Lieutenant Horwood stares straight ahead as his new-wedded bride stares from him to Sam, not quite understanding the ins and outs of the Earth military, although she'll learn it soon enough.

Military wives generally do.

Sam turns her gaze on Horwood's team-mates. In for a quarter, in for the whole damn dollar. "Captain Soma, is this clear to you?"

"Yes, ma'am! We're off the outgoing roster until the details are finalised between the Lieutenant and Miss Pelani."

"With one exception before you go off-roster." Sam moves around her desk and indicates the gateroom below. "I'll send a Quartermaster's team with you, but you're otherwise being sent to escort and arrange the management of Pelani's dowry with one of our trading partners. You'll be shipping out immediately."

This time, Soma doesn't manage to keep the wince off his face. "Yes, ma'am. Come on, Lieutenant."

Sam watches them file out of her office and down to the Gateroom, and gives the orders for the Atlantis Quartermaster and his people to prepare for an off-world trip. She does so without grimacing at the stench rising up from the open area in spite of the balcony doors that have been wedged open in the control room, at the first landing up from the Gateroom, and probably down along the corridors leading off to the transporters that would take personnel out through the city.

The Lieutenant may be in the shit metaphorically with his unexpected marriage, but all of Atlantis will be in the shit with him as seventy-five head of cattle shuffle, bellow, and defecate with bovine unconcern for the cleanliness of the Atlantis Gateroom's floor.

Sam sighs as there's a bellow down below and a soggy-sounding splat.

She never expected the command of Atlantis to be easy; but she never really expected it to be so...aromatic, either.

 


End file.
